Remembering Bush science adviser Jack Marburger

Dr. John (“Jack”) Marburger, distinguished physicist and President George W. Bush’s science adviser and former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, died on July 28 at the age of 70. Marburger served as president of the State University of New York at Stony Brook for more than a decade, and as director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, before Bush tapped him for the White House job in 2001. In every job Marburger took on throughout his remarkable career — and he had some difficult assignments — he stuck it out, whatever the circumstances, and did his very best to get the job done.

I knew Jack for many years and saw him from time to time during the period he was in the White House and following the end of the George W. Bush administration. Most recently, we both appeared along with President Obama’s science adviser, Dr. John Holdren, on a panel of former presidential science advisers at an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which began during the Clinton administration and which all of us had been involved with.

Jack Marburger was appointed in September 2001 and served until the end of the George W. Bush administration in January 2009 — the longest, I believe, of any presidential science adviser. His was a challenging task: to give the president advice at a very difficult time for the nation following 9/11. Clearly, science was not high on the administration’s agenda, political or otherwise. Moreover, Marburger was a Democrat and had to work to gain the trust of the political advisers around the president. In addition to the usual issues a science adviser deals with, he was placed in the uncomfortable position having to defend actions of other high-level officials in government, whom he likely did not agree with.

In the early years of the George W. Bush administration, there were a large number of instances when government officials blatantly discounted scientific evidence in favor of ideology, special interests and partisan politics. I was among 60 signatories of a 2004 statement criticizing the Bush administration for its misrepresentation of scientific evidence and calling on the administration to “restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking.” The criticism was not aimed at Marburger, nor was it suggested that Bush was even aware that these things were happening. But many in the science community felt that Marburger should not have defended the administration. My position was that he had no choice — either do his best to defend the administration or resign. I was pleased that he did not resign; I could not imagine anyone better who could replace him. I agree with the recent statement of Sherwood “Sherry” Boehlert, former Republican congressman from New York and former chair of the House Science Committee, who was quoted in Science magazine’s online “Science Insider”: “The challenge he faced was serving a president who didn’t really want much scientific advice, and who let politics dictate the direction of his science policy … And he was in the unenviable position of being someone who had earned the respect of his scientific colleagues while having to be identified with policies that were not science-based.”

It is understandable that the research community wants to feel confident that the president’s science adviser will represent their interests; but the job of the science adviser is to give the president confidential advice on any aspect of science and technology that the science adviser feels the president needs to know about. And, when necessary, the science adviser must defend the actions of the administration, sometimes reminding the public that policy decisions are based on many factors, not exclusively on scientific evidence. What was difficult in this particular case was that some in the administration were willing to say — or imply — things that were demonstrably false. I am not aware that Marburger made any false statements about any aspect of science.

Since I left the White House in 2001 at the end of the Clinton administration, I have often been asked what I thought were the most significant accomplishments of science advisers in the past. My answer was — and is — that the most important things a science adviser does usually are not in the public eye. I am sure that is the case with Marburger.

I frequently give talks about the importance of scientists getting more involved with the public, and with public policy, in a role many of us call the “civic scientist.” Jack Marburger was a model civic scientist and someone I will always remember with great respect, admiration and gratitude.